Potential Buffalo Township housing development denied at 1st hurdle
BUFFALO TWP — After an hour of spirited debate and discussion, the Buffalo Township supervisors voted down a zoning amendment Wednesday, Dec. 11, that would have potentially allowed a housing development to take shape on Riemer Road.
The petition for a zoning amendment was submitted by Hawthorne Residential, which was aiming to have three parcels of land totaling 83.42 acres rezoned from agricultural to residential. It would have been the first step toward a planned housing development, although no plans were showcased during Wednesday night’s meeting.
The final vote among the supervisors was 4-1 against the proposal, with only Gary Risch, who attended the meeting by video call, casting a dissenting vote. The other supervisors — Ron Zampogna, Matthew Sweeny, Michael Oehling, and Albert Roenigk — voted no.
The monthly board of supervisors meeting on Wednesday was packed with township residents, many of whom live near the site of the proposed development and caught wind of the proposed zoning amendment.
According to minutes from the previous board meeting held Nov. 13, the same zoning amendment proposal was discussed at a public hearing. It was faced with similar questions from residents and was subsequently tabled.
“We had received a letter of a public hearing regarding the proposed rezoning of the property. We received it from a law firm,” said Elona Palmer, who lives on Coal Hollow Road, near the proposed site of the development. “So we attended, and that's how we knew to continue coming to these meetings.”
At one point, there were so many in attendance that there weren’t enough seats for everyone, and some had to stand in the hallway. Among them were representatives from the Freeport Area School Board, who rushed over from their own meeting half a mile away as soon as it ended.
Throughout the discussion, Zampogna and other township officials repeatedly reminded residents that this was merely the first step in the process for the housing development to come to fruition — a process that could take at least a decade.
“If this were to ever move forward, the hurdles that they have to go through ... are immense,” Zampogna said. “There's a ton of hurdles to get through. They have to abide by stormwater management and all that fun stuff that comes with developing a piece of property.”
Palmer and other residents brought up concerns about how construction on the development, whenever it started, would affect the water at their own homes. In Palmer’s case, her street is not hooked up to a municipal water system.
“By eliminating the trees and the movement of the ground, the excavation could possibly contaminate the well water, or make us lose our well water,” Palmer said.
“My water's going to go down into the Buffalo Creek,” said Mark Caruso. “It's no longer going to go down through the aquifer.”
The conversation also tied into a debate — running through Buffalo Township for months, at least — around whether the township has become overrun with housing developments, or even development in general.
“Who's telling us, you better let these people come in here, and you better give them water, and you better do this?” Caruso asked. “These housing plans take the value away from our homes, and then they create a vacuum of our property, which then gets sold cheaply. Somebody renovates it. Somebody then gets whatever they get out of an Airbnb.”
During the meeting, Kristen Diehl said that she passed around a survey to hundreds of residents and sent the results to township officials. She showed that 136 residents responded to the survey.
“Everybody that responded was in a majority of the fact that they believed that the development that's happening in the township is happening too quickly,” Diehl said.
This eventually led to a lengthy discussion between Diehl and multiple township officials, with Diehl arguing that the township did not provide enough information through the internet and pleaded with them to have a social media presence.
At present, Buffalo Township does not have an official account on Facebook or X.
In response, township officials said that residents would be better informed on township issues if they attended meetings more often.
“I think when people show up, their voice is heard, and the township responds to that,” said Oehling. “I'm pleased with the way the meeting went tonight.”
